Re: Humans & Humanoids [WAS: Back!]

Jim Grossmann wrote:
> Tens of thousands of years in the future, human languages will have no
> discernable relationship to ours;   you can make anything up you want about
> them.
As with Tom Wier's Phaleran, spoken in the distant future on a far-away
world.

> Our understanding of evolution is incomplete;   our current speculations
> about extraterrestrials are wrong.   Just as the echidna (monotreme) can
> resemble a hedgehog (placental), aliens could resemble US.
Or just plain wrong, and God really likes the humanoid form.  :-)

Or how about parallel evolution - long ago, aliens took hominids and
scattered them about the universe.

> Maybe we should add something to the conlang code about degree of conculture
> development?
Or perhaps a supplementary conculture code?  Possible items would be:
Speakers (human, humanoid, related to humans, fantasy beings [elves,
etc.], totally alien)
With perhaps a marker for how they're connected to us if human/related
to human, such as secret/unknown culture, alternate history,
humans/pre-humans transplanted in ancient past, humans in ancient
past/future

Degree of development (rough sketch - an elaborate universe)

Base (consciously based on a human culture, loosely based on one or more
cultures, no intentional base (but accidental or unconscious
similarities may exist), intentionally as alien as possible)

Religion (unknown, vague, fairly well-developed, well-developed,
con-scripture exists)

Any other ideas?

--
"[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue
hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
William Caxton
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